The Christmas Chronicles, by Jeff Guinn

For the Holidays, I read The Autobiography of Santa Clause in The Christmas Chronicles by Jeff Guinn. The Chronicles are a collection of three books that also contain How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas and The Great Santa Search. Guinn writes three humorous 1^st person narratives of the history of Christmas.

Guinn did excellent research in writing the stories, and provides a historical perspective on Christmas from about 30 A.D. to the present. He introduces us to famous and influential figures along the way. I found the early sections of Santa’s autobiography especially interesting when he tells us about Christmas and Christianity during the Roman Empire.

I also liked the way Guinn intertwined famous characters, writers and other Christmas stories into his tale. We get to meet King Arthur, Attila the Hun, Ben Franklin, Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Santa Claus helps Charles Dickens write A Christmas Carol. Guinn also shows the influence of Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore in shaping the legend of Santa Claus in the United States. However it wasn’t until Thomas Nast’s artwork that we got our visual image of Santa Claus.

Overall I enjoyed the Autobiography of Santa Claus, but the story could have been improved by the pace and tone. To quote the writer’s mantra, “Show, don’t tell.” In my opinion, Guinn did too much telling. The book had too much first this happened, next we did this and so on. He used a lot of passive voice in the telling. A few more action verbs would have improved the story.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

I originally intended to write an upbeat happy blog about the cartoon A Charlie Brown Christmas. Discussing some of my fond memories of growing-up in Pennsylvania. Sledding on the hillsides, ice skating on the little pond in the cornfield, cutting down Christmas trees, and enjoying the Holiday with my cousins. Then I realized that A Charlie Brown Christmas was released in 1965.

I was four years old. We were in a red Dodge station wagon traveling from Minnesota to Pennsylvania. My cousins weren’t born yet, and my Dad had received orders to go to Vietnam. Wow, 1965 was not such a good year. Here are a few more things from 1965.

A brief look on the web of 1965 produced the following results. A gallon of gas cost 31 cents and had lead. If we had bought the Dodge new it would have been about $2,600. Malcolm X had been assassinated. Two good things from 1965 – Washington enacted the Voting Right Act of 1965 and the Grateful Dead played their first concert in San Francisco.

Charles M. Schulz and Bill Melendez found themselves immersed in a society going through monumental changes when they did A Charlie Brown Christmas. They chose to point out the rampant commercialization of Christmas – a topic still pertinent today. I have to wonder if they had talked about civil rights and Viet Nam would people still be watching the cartoon over forty years later. Did they grasp the deeper significance of greed in our society and the problems deriving from it?

Or maybe I am just reading too much into a children’s cartoon. After all it is the Holiday season. Maybe I should add some rum to the eggnog, sit back and enjoy the show.

Christmas Shopping Tim Allen style

Today I swung by the outdoor Shops at Wiregrass in New Tampa for a little Christmas shopping. Instead I discovered a car show and the Midnight Bowlers League band playing rockabilly. Their routine included songs from Bill Halley, Eddie Cochrane, and even a little Warren Smith. The air was brisk limiting the size of the crowd, but the show was entertaining, and everyone was having fun. The car show included several muscle cars such as Corvettes, Mustangs, and Impalas. And did I mention a red Cadillac convertible? Oh Yeah! The cars had horses under their hoods. They rumbled down the street, and echoed off the buildings. No whiney four cylinders in this show. I did manage to get a few packages, but mostly I admired the cars and enjoyed the music.